What happens if your cat pees on it, or your mom spills milk on it, or it spontaneously combusts?

At the same time as my laptop being broken?

At that point I'd probably just quit and go live in the woods or something

Do you keep your backup drive at a set location and just backup while you are there, or do you carry it with you in your briefcase/laptop bag?

Neither are perfect solutions, but they have slightly different drawbacks. The biggest complaints I have seen from those who carry their backups with them is having their bad stolen with both the laptop and the backup drive disappearing at the same time. Whereas those who keep the backup drive and home or office more commonly complain about having gone too long between actually connecting the drive and performing a backup, and not having a copy of the file they want backed up when they need it, although we did have one scenario where a persons laptop and backup drive were stolen in a home break-in.

haus wrote:Do you keep your backup drive at a set location and just backup while you are there, or do you carry it with you in your briefcase/laptop bag?

Neither are perfect solutions, but they have slightly different drawbacks. The biggest complaints I have seen from those who carry their backups with them is having their bad stolen with both the laptop and the backup drive disappearing at the same time. Whereas those who keep the backup drive and home or office more commonly complain about having gone too long between actually connecting the drive and performing a backup, and not having a copy of the file they want backed up when they need it, although we did have one scenario where a persons laptop and backup drive were stolen in a home break-in.